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HISTORICAL ADDRESS 





^,TO THE 




if 



OF 1868, 



IN THE 



ffcical Stpartmtnt 



OF THE 



UNIVERSITY OF NASHVILLE. 



BY 

W. IS. BOWLING, M.IX, 

Pro/. </. Institute! arid rracti<$ of Medicint, tmd Detm of t\i ifeditml Fatuity, 




SECOND EDITION. 



Sosiprillc, fomt. : 

W. H. F. Lig(w, Printer, Mbdical Joubkal Office 
1868. 




HISTORICAL ADDRESS 



TO THE 




ftWiiUfttg 










©w mm* 



IN THE 



t hi tu I ptpzttmttit 

(A) * 



OF THE 

UNIVERSITY OF NASHVILLE. 

BT 

W. It. BOWLING, MD., 

Prof, of Institutes and Practice of Medicine, and Dean of the Medical Faculty. 







W. H. F. Ligox, Pr., Medical Jcuenal Officb, 

1868. 



.K 1 



5t V 



ADDRESS 



Gentlemen of the Graduating Class : — 

It has become my duty by appointment to meet you publicly 
upon this the most important episode of your lives. The 
Faculty of Medicine in, and the Trustees of the University of 
Nashville, have agreed that you are entitled to, and of right, 
ought to have the degree of Doctor of Medicine conferred upon 
you; and the former in person and the latter by their head, or 
Chancellor, meet you here this evening that in the presence of 
the invited public the ceremonies shall transpire through which 
you are to pass into one of the three, so-called, learned profes- 
sions. I do not intend in this presence to indulge in any labored 
eulogy upon the profession of your and my choice, nor to weary 
you with an enumeration of the responsibilities incurred by its 
adoption. Every vocation of life has clustered about it respon- 
sibilities peculiar to it, and my observation is that each pursuit 
tends to magnify all things connected with it. A good man will 
find in any of them exacting responsibilities, and the bad will 
shirk them alike in all. 

Being graduates in medicine from the University of Nashville 
I think it not impertinent to the occasion to recall and group a 
few incidents in the history of the institution and the city 
whose name it adopted. 

Carlisle in his Frederic the Great reveals to us a stalwart 
young man taking a farewell glance at his native hills to go 
forth and seek his fortune in the great world beyond. From this 
young man, after twenty generations of men had played out their 
play, descended the mighty hero — the same Frederic — who for 



seven years fought all Europe and was In a paying condition r 
the end, and now, after two more generations, another descend- 
ant of that same young man has made Prussia and Germany 
almost convertible terms. How Jacob founded an Empire is 
familiar to all. Three generations ago the country round about 
us was a wilderness. In 1714 some French trappers, headed by 
their countryman Charlville, took possession of a deserted fort, 
constructed long before by Shawnee Indians, on this bluff. 
They were the first white men who ever stood on the banks of 
the Cumberland. Here they trapped and traded with the In- 
dians without molestation, the intuitions of the Eed man 
detecting no land hunting proclivities in them. They passed 
away forever before the approaching shadow of the land absorb- 
ing Anglo-Saxon. 

In the spring of 1770 history reveals to us a stout, tall, young 
man of pleasant countenance and Scotch-Irish cast of features, 
with a few companions in tjie midst of a wilderness decyphering 
a record cut by a pocket knife in the smooth bark of a beech 
tree. It was a very straggling record and to the effect that, 
" D. Boon killed a bear on a tree, in the year 1760." The 
yonng man endeavoring to clecypher these hieroglyphics was 
James Eobertson in after years fondly alluded to as the Father 
of Tennessee. This brave, adventurous, high-souled Virginian 
was the physical type of a country which was afterwards in its 
physical attributes to be developed into a likeness of its founder 
and father. Providence works out its greatest ends with the 
simplest of means. Eobertson was hunting for a home for him- 
self, wife and child. Providence had sent him to make straight 
the way for millions. He was of lowly birth, poor and uneduca- 
ted. He could not read. No ensigns armorial 'nor the gilded 
heraldic trappings of a noble ancestry were for one whose 
mission was to the forest home of the red man who loved thu 
war-path and garlanded his wigwam with its horrible trophies. 

In the spring of 1779 this great pioneer with one African and 
eight Caucasian followers, stood on the site occupied by this 
magnificent Temple and the shadow of the Anglo-Saxon was to 
ab'de here while the sun shone. 



Five years after by act of the Legislature of North Carolina a 
town was established on this bluff to be called Nashville, and in 
1785, the year after, James Robertson, representing in the 
Legislature of North Carolina a people living in stations and forts 
secured the passage of an act chartering Lavidson Academy the 
nucleus of the University of Nashville, which the following year 
was organized under the superintendence of Rev. Thomas B. 
Craighead. 

James Robertson had laid the mud-sills of his commonwealth 
and reared the superstructure out of material like himself;, with 
reference to strength and durability rather than polish or orna-* 
mentation. The stationers were wonderful men for courage, en- 
durance, energy and heroism, or they had not been here. Un- 
like older commonwealths, made up of those to the manor born, 
this was composed of those alone who voluntarily abandoned a 
higher state of civilization to push their fortunes in a new 
world, willing to wear away their lives in battling with appalling 
difficulties that their descendants might possess a bounteous land 
and thus gather about them the sure accompaniments of wealth, 
luxury and refinement. 

The year Davidson Academy was organized a child was born 
in Morristown, New Jersey, destined to act an important part in 
connection with the far off institution of twin-birth with him- 
self. 

How different from each other were the two individuals des- 
tined to give form and pressure, body and mind to the new Com- 
monwealth, and yet how wonderfully adapted was each to the 
work assigned him in the Providence of God ! He who was to 
build the body of the Commonwealth was endowed with wisdom, 
prudence, fortitude and heroism, each in an exalted degree ; but 
was void of those attractive graces which education and long 
association with the cultivated and refined alone can secure. 
He was the child of poverty and neglect or he had never been 
prepared for those enterprises and achievments which made him 
immortal. His exterior, while granite, had never felt the trans- 
forming edge of the implements of sculpture, and the mind that 
humanized it, while of great depth and reach and of imperial 



texture, had no light but that of reason, which shone through 

nature up to nature's God ! How different the portraiture of 
him who was to form the mind of the gentler descendents of 
those forest heroes. He belonged to the caste of Brahmins, which 
means, in New England, the descendants of educated generations 
and, born to the inheritance of education, to which he so 
often eloquently alludes in after years as " the birthright of man." 
From the city enameled plains of New Jersey 



•his infant vision 



First gazed upon the vaulted sky." 

His father's quiet and hospitable home, at Basking Bidge, the 
elegant retreat of learned men in the season of leisure sent forth 
from its venerable shades three graduates from the College of 
.New Jersey, one of the three great seats of learning in the United 
States. One of these was Phillip Lindsley, late President of the 
"University of Nashville. To him providence seems to have en- 
trusted the work of fashioning the minds and manners of the 
descendants of the pioneers planted by Robertson in the wilder- 
ness. One planted and the other watered. If the body was the 
handiwork of James Robertson the soul that gave it grace and 
excellence and power for good was breathed into it by Phillip 
Lindsley. 

% "There is a divinity that shapes our ends 

Rough hew them as we may." 

Besides possessing a brain of th^ finest texture, a result of 
educated brain transmitted through many generations, and, in 
turn, receiving a more elaborate polish than any in the line of 
ascent,profouncl wisdom was a conspicuous quality amid its endow- 
ments, resting as it always does, on its pedestal of prudence. That 
he was impelled by a necessity, of which he was intuitively con- 
scious, of taking the seemingly unwise step of abandoning the 
brightest prospects with which fortune ever tempted ambition to 
consecrate his life and energies to building up in the back woods 
an institution of learning Which he intended should rival in glory 
and usefulness the first in all the land, no mind religiously in- 
structed, and with power to grasp and analyse the problem can 



hesitate for a moment to yield its unqualified assent. To show 4 
this it is only necessary to glance rapidly at what he yielded at 
home and abroad to secure a life of toil here. When he was 
only thirty-one years of age he was twice chosen President of 
Transylvania University which he promptly declined. 

Transylvania, at Lexington, then could afford advantages to 
which the institution at Nashville could not pretend. This was 
in 1817, when a medical school w T as already forming at Lexing- 
ton, and which a few years after gave great eclat to the Transyl- 
vania University. But in this same year he became Vice- 
President of the great college of New Jersey, at Princeton, 
Five years afterwards, when only thirty-six years of age, he be- 
came its acting President, and in the following year he was 
chosen President of the College of New Jersey and of the Uni- 
versity of Nashville, then Cumberland College, both of which 
appointments he declined. In 1824 the Presidency of Cumber- 
land College being again tendered him he accepted it and re-» 
moved with his family to Nashville. If his predilection was 
merely for a western home Transylvania offered advantages supe- 
rior to Nashville, or the Ohio University at Athens, the presi- 
dency of which he also refused, could present inducements 
superior to either. But an invisible finger pointed him to Nash- 
ville which he was compelled to obey. 

In 1786, the date of Dr. Phillip Lindsleys birth, the first 
meeting was held to organize a Board of Trustees for Davidson 
Academy. The Legislature of North Carolina in chartering the 
institution had endowed it with two hundred and forty 
acres of land, then worth little more than as many dollars, 
but being included within the Corporate limits of the 
city rose in value and kept the nucleus of our University 
from perishing in its babyhood. Tli'j actual seat of the institu- 
tion was fixed at Spring Hill Meeting-House six miles from 
Nashville on the road leading to Gallatin where its first President, 
Eev. Thos. B. Craighead, taught the boys through the week at 
the rate of five pounds a year and preached to them and his 
neighbors on Sunday. The remains of the good man sleep near 
the spot of his labors From 1776 to 1798 the institution lived 



as best it could on the rents of land, taken in corn and sold b 
the trustees for what they could get, the lease of ferries an 
occasional sales of land. 

In 1796 an act by some means passed the Legislature, intrc 
duced ten new trustees into the board, with power to appoir 
auditors, to whom the members of the old Board should accoun 
and with the further power to oust the old Trustees from office. 
Of course this new material was resisted and sucessfully by the 
old Board and is made worthy of recalling by almost an exact 
repetition in 1849 and with a similar result, the popularly 
denominated Jack-o-lantern Board being ousted summarily by 
act of the Supreme Court of the State. 

In the year 1787, the year after the first meeting of the Board 
of Trustees, of the Academy, the town of Nashville consisted of 
twenty-six one acre lots, each lot valued at four pounds, North 
Carolina currency, and the tax assessed on the entire town was 
twenty-six dollars ! 

The year that closed the last century an opposition institution 
entitled " The Federal Seminary" sprang up, but after a feeble 
existence of a few months passed into nothingness. Its name in 
connection with the time is very suggestive. 

In the beginning of this century the " Academy," though with 
a name, had no local habitation. It seems for the fourteen pro- 
ceeding years to have been a sort of myth, not recognized at the 
time as an entity and only now known by the record of its faith- 
ful Trustees — the strangest ever put on parchment or paper, 
consisting of accounts of meetings at this and that man's house, 
sometimes in town, sometimes in the country, and appointments 
of committees to rent out fields and ferries, sell rails or collect 
former rents in the products of the soil of which sale was to be 
made and funds appropriated by prescription. The county of 
Davidson, where the Academy was to have been located, could 
biding place have been found for it, was the very year the 
trustees first met divided into two counties, Davidson and Sum- 
ner, and when finally in 1802 it was determined that a house 
should be built, Sumner put in a claim for the honor of posses- 
sion, but Davidson outbidding her competitor secured the des-^ 



tinction and gave the name of the beautiful river that'divided 
her territory to the institution, which thus became Cumberland 
College. It was ordered in 1804 that the Academy buildings 
should be forty-five feet wide and forty feet long, and the con- 
tract for its erection is concluded at a cost of $10,890. 

Kev. Thos. B. Craighead continued at the head of this school 
till October 1809, the last two years and three months as Presi- 
dent of Cumberland College, when Dr. James Priestly was 
unanimously elected to that office, and was regularly installed 
as President on the 30th of January 1810, so that from the 
beginning until Priestly was twenty-four }~ears and from Priestly 
to Linclsh j y fourteen years. A generation had been swallowed 
up in the great past since the organization of the school ard yet 
it scarcely existed in name. The eye of fancy ever delights to 
linger in the misty past, which, reversing natural vision, finds 
the grandeur and magnificence of all within it range to increase 
with distance and the poet was revelling in the seductive realms 
of Fancy when he exclaimed : 

" Tis distance lends enchantment to the view." 

Old men, lingering in imagination amid scences of yonth and 
early manhood find the glory of the past so enrapturing as to 
force them to declaim against the degenerate days in which their 
old age has fallen, forgetting that the past in which their souls 
are anchored made up the degenerate days of their fathers. Very 
old men here (and among them are those who were soldiers and 
in battle seventy-four years ago,) will tell you of the grand old 
days of our boasted University in the time of Craighead, while 
many more will descant upon the wonderful amount of learning 
young men absorbed at the feet of Priestly, and these men de- 
serve all the praise that a grateful posterity can cluster about 
their memories. But sober history instructs us that it was not 
in the power of the Institution to accomplish much in those 
days and for any advantage to Dr. Phillip Lindsley when he 
commenced his work here in 1824 it might as well never existed. 
It was the spirit of this great genius, that originated a new 
2 



10 

creation in the mind- world of the wilderness which from the? 
banks of the Cumberland, as from a common center, was diffused 
throughout the great South-west stirring up men to newness of 
mental life, and which by the vehemence and grandeur of its ac- 
tion transformel so many into his own mental imrgs as in part 
to defeat the grand objest of his life which was to build up a 
University at Nashville that should equal any of the Old World 
and defy possible rivalry of the New. The fascinat'ons of his 
genius and learning made life-long converts to his grand theory 
that " Learning was the birth-bight of man/' and he thus 
originated a furor among his own desciples who founded Col- 
leges as a means to the great consummation?, so that by the end 
of his second decade at Nashville there were no less than nine 
colleges within fifty miles of his University,, deciding its patron- 
age and retarding its hoped for culmination. Nineteen hun- 
dred of his deciples, fired by the enthusiasm of their great mas- 
ter, had become the mental ferment of an empire, proclaiming 
through the length and breadth of the land that Education, 
thorough, and classical because thorough, was the birth-right of 
man t At the close of his twenty-third year at Nashville in a 
public address he says " when this College was revived and re- 
organized, at the close of 1824 y there were no similar Institu- 
tions in aclnral cp3ration within two hundred miles of Nashville, 
There were none in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, 
Middle or West Tennessee. There are now some thirty or more 
within that distance, and nine within* fifty miles ot our city. 
These all claim to be our superiors and to be equal at least to 
Old Havard or Yale. Of course we cannot expect much " cus- 
tom" or to command a large range of what is miscalled patron- 
age. I have a list now before me of twenty Colleges or Univer- 
sities in Tennessee alone. Several of those belong exclusively to 
individuals and are bought and sold in open market like any 
other species of private property. They are invested with the 
tisual Corporate powers and may confer all University degrees- 
at pleasure. This is probably a new thing under the sun : but 
Solomon's "Geography did not extend to America/' 



II 

His Biographer, Dr. Hal sey, beautifully conceives and por- 
trays the achievements of his subject. He has made mention o 
Dr. Lindsleys nineteen hundred pupils and says : 

" The writer has had occasion to know something of these grea 
south-western States — something of the men who have foundea 
their institutions, and of the influences which have molded the 
character of their people during the last quarter of a century — 
and, without wishing to detract a jot < r tittle from other eminent 
and useful laborers, he can bear witn< ss that he has visited no 
point in all this vast region where the influence of Phillip Linds- 
ley had not been felt and where some of his pupils were not 
found in the foremost rank of honorable men, bravely battling 
for the true and the good. Often, while weary himself of the 
heat and burden of the day, in som'* humble and distant corner 
of the field, has he felt his own he^rt cheered to renewed activity, 
as he has looked back to that unpretending college hillside at 
Nashville, and thought of the master-magician there — the very 
Arnold of our western colleges — who, quietly, unobserved by the 
world, and wielding a power greater than that of Prospero in the 
Tempest, was sending forth his influence to bless and save his 

country. What an illustration of the power of knowledge of 

the way in which a good man may perpetuate his influence ! 
Many of these nineteen hundred puplis have become educators. 

Through them the head- master is still teaching teaching in 

the colleges, universities, high schools, common schools, medical 
and law schools — teaching in the pulpit, the press, the courts of 
justice, the legislative halls — teaching at the firesides, in the 
counting-rooms, in the workshops, in the banking-houses of this 
great Mississippi Valley. The waves of popular and liberal 
education, thus created, as by a great central elevating force, are 
still rolling, and ever widening as they roll ! It was fortunate, 
it was providential, for the south-west, that such a force should 
be applied just when and where it was. 

"But perhaps the most striking illustration of his influence as 
an educator is seen at Nashville itself— the scene of his longest 
labors — the home of his adoption- -the resting-place where his 
ashes sleep. We have no citizenship at Nashviilo ■ and bence 



15 

can not "be accused of partiality in what we are about to say. 
But of all we have seen and known, we may safely pay, there is 
no city west of the mountains which seems to us so justly en- 
titled to be called the Athens of the West, as Nashville. And 
for that destruction we think there is no man to whom Nashville 
is so much indebted as Dr. Lindsley. If any man ever made his 
mark, deep and ineffaceable, upon a place and people, he made 
it at Nashville. We say this too with a full knowledge and ap- 
preciation of the eminent labors of his compeers and predeces- 
sors. 

To appreciate this influence we havefcnly to contrast Nashville 
as it now'is with what it was when Dr. Lindsley became the 
President of Cumberland College — an interval of more than 
thirty years. 

We had occasion to visit it for the first time in 1830, in the 
sixth year of his presidency, and recollect distinctly what it then 
was, as^from an adjoining hill, and on an autumn morning, we 
saw its rocks, and cedars, and housetops, partially covered with 
the first fall of snow, and glittering like a mount of diamonds 
in the light of the rising sun. It was a compact little city of 
some five or six thousand souls, confined pretty much to a single 
hill or bluff on the left bank of the Cumberland. But it was 
beautiful even then — set like the gem in the green casket of the 
surrounding hill-country. It stood just at the outer apex of a 
long curve in the river, where, after sweeping westward, through 
a rich valley, and striking the elevated bluffs of stratified lime- 
stone rocks underlying the city, it flows gracefully and slowly 
away, in a long stretch to the North, as if its waters lingered to 
look upon a spot of so much beauty. It was precisely such a 
spot as the old classic* Greeks and Koman would have chosen to 
build a city. It was a^sitej of gently-rising and conterminous 
hills, almost as numerous and quite as elevated as the seven 
hills of Borne ; and each" of their summits at that time wore the 
green crown of a dense cedar grove— while from the midst of the 
city, seemingly out of its very housetops, rose one central and 
higher hill, like Alp on Alp, overlooking all the scene, and not 
unworthy of the Athenian Acropolis. In that central cedar- 



13 

crorrned hill the old Greeks would have imagined the genii locC 
to dwell. And if the traveler had chanced to visit the spot some 
fifty years earlier than we did, he might in leed have found there 
th< j real genius of the place— not some fabled Grecian goddess, 
hut a wild Cherokee Indian The University was then a single, 
plain, unpretending building, ninety feet long and three stories 
high, situated on what was called College Hill, to the south of 
the city, and commanding a fine view both of the ciry and the 
river. In the books of that day, the seat ol all this natural 
beauty was described as a " Post-town, the capital of Davidson 
county, containing a court-house, a branch bank of the United 
States, the respectable private bank of Yeatman, Woods & Co., 
a valuable public library, a respectable female academy, and 
houses of public worship for Presbyterians, Methodists, and 
Baptists 

".Such was the capital of Tennessee thirty years ago. And 
what is it now ? Now, 1859, it is a busy city of nearly thirty- 
two thousand souls, on 'both sides of the river, and spread out 
over all the hills and valleys for miles around. Now it has six- 
teen Protestant churches, three lines of railroad, a hundred 
steamboats, and an annual trade, including its manufactures of 
twenty-five millions. The long, rude box of a bridge, which 
once connected the banks of the river, has given place to two 
magnificent structures, one for railroad and the other tor ordinary 
use— such as the Tiber never boasted, and which would have 
filled the old Romans with mingled wonder and delight. Those 
beautiful green cedars, once the glory of winter, have disappeared 
from all the hilltops, and in their place have sprung up the 
marble mansions of wealth, or the neat cottages of the artisan. 
That central summit, where in olden times dwelt the wild genii 
of the woods, is now surmounted with the capital of Tennessee 
— the temple of law and justice, built of native marble, whose 
massive proportions, rising without an obstruction, and seen 
from every direction, as if projected against the very sky, would 
have done honor, to the Athenian Acropolis in the proudest days 
of Pericles. And there too, looking from the broad terraces and 
steps of the capitnl, the spectator beholds, across the city at the 



14 

distance of a mile to the south, that old and famous College 
Hill— -once u so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospects and 
melodious sounds," but now < -uviroued by a dense and busy 
population— -where tor twenty-six years, by day and night, went 
on th'.3 great work we have taken in hand to estimate — the work 
of training some two thousand immortal minds in all high and 
liberal learning. That hill is now set apart to the medical de- 
partment of the university, with its spacious buildings, its costly 
museum, its laboratory, library, lecture-rooms, and four hundred 
students, gathered from all quarters of the South-west. But 
further on in the same Southern direction, and in the ample and 
elevated grounds which Dr. Lindsley had the wisdom to secure 
tor such purposes at an early day, are now seen the still more 
-costly and magnificent new buildings of the literary department, 
which have been erected since his resignation, through the ener- 
getic and untiring exertions of his son, the present Chancellor of 
the University. 

" We had an opportunity, only a few years ago, of visiting 
Nashville, and while there of comparing her past and present 
condition. We examined somewhat closely into the influences 
which have been at; work to make her what she is. In all we 
saw and heard, we were more and more impressed with the con- 
viction that the prominent elements and agencies of her growth, 
and of her present elevated chara ter as a city, were those which 
had originated on that same College Hill. We found that the 
" Old University," though for a season suspended, was in iact 
still governing the city. We found that most of the leading 
men, in all the learned professions, mercantile pursuits, and 
even mechanic trades, had, in one way or another, been connec- 
ted with the university, and in a measure educated by it. We 
found that many of her most gifted alumni from other parts of 
the State, and even from other States, after rising to wealth and 
influence at home had worked their way back to Nashville, and 
were now contributing all the resources of their talents, their 
experience, their attainments, and their fortunes to the onward 
and upward growth of the city. We found that thus 3 congre- 
gating &t Nashville, and throwing the wholo weight of their 



15 

character, their public spirit, their enterprise, their love of edu- 
cat/ion into all the intercourse of society, am! all the walks of 
business, and the whole public administration of the city, they 
were not only making the capital of Tennessee an emporium of 
wealth and an Athens of learning, but sending forth an influence 
over all the surrounding region — nay, one that must be felt in 
every nook and corner of the State. We found that thus then* 
was a great elevating moral power at Nashville— (he power of 
letters— the power of education— the power )f her own Univer- 
sity. And when we saw all this— saw how the city had grown, 
and why it had grown, to its present enviable position of intel- 
lectual and moral power— we remembered some of those match- 
less appeals, and arguments, and vindications in favor of the 
higher learning as the nucleus of all that was great and good, 
which, for twenty-six years, Nashville had never failed to hear. 
The predictions were all fulfilled or fulfilling, though the elo- 
quent tongue that spoke them was now silent. And we felt 
that, if Nashville should ever erect a public monument to any 
man, the honor was due to her eminent educator — PHILLIP 
LINDSLEY." 

Ten years after the organizafion of Davidson Academy, a 
a young Englishman nanv-d Bailey afterward the distinguished 
founder and President of the Royal Astronomical Society of 
London, in wandering through the wilds of Western America 
spent a few days at Nashville which he thus describes : 

" We even met within three or four mil s of the town two 
coaches fitted up in all the style of Philadelphia or New York, 
besides other carriages which plainly indicated that a sort of 
refinement and luxury had made its way into this settlement * 
* o e it vvas near seven o'clock when we reached Nashville. 
The sight of it gave us great pleasure after so long an absence 
from any compact society of this kind, we reviewed the several 
buildings with a degree of satisfaction and aditionai beauty which 
none can conceive but those who have undergone the same cir- 
cumstances * * * This town consists of obout sixty or 
eighty families ; the houses (which are chiefly of logs or frame) 



16 

stand*seattered over the whole site of the town, so that it ap- 
peare I larger than it actually is." 

James Partem, in 1857, gives this description of our city : 

•' Pleasant Nashville ! Its situation is superb A gently un- 
dulating, tortile valley, ifteer) or twenty miles across, quite en- 
circled by hills. Through this 'panoramic vale winds the ever- 
winding Cumberland, a somewhat swiftly -flowing stream about 
as wide as the Hudson at Albany. The banks are of that abrupt 
ascent which suggested the name of bluffs, high enough to lift 
the country above the reach of the marvelous rises of the river, 
but not so high as to render it too difficult of access. In the 
middle of this valley, half a mile from the banks of the stream, 
is a high, steep hill, the summit of which, just large enough for 
the purpose, would have been crowned with a castle if the river 
had been the Ehine instead of the Cumberland. Upon this hill 
stands the capitol of the Slate of Tennessee, the /most elegant, 
correct, convenient and genuine public building in the United 
States, a conspicuous testimonial of the wealth, taste and liber- 
ality of the State. 

"From the cupola of this edifice the stranger, delighted and 
surprised, looks down upon the city of Nashville, packed be- 
tween the capitol-crowned hill and the coiling Cumberland, looks 
around upon the panoramic valley, dotted with villas and vil- 
lages, smiling with fields, and fringed with distant, dark, forest- 
covered mountains. And there is one still living who was born 
in that valley when it was death from the rifle of a savage to go 
unattended to drink from a spring-an eighth of a mile from the 
settlement. 

" Pleasant Nashville ! It was laid out in the good old Eng- ; 
lish, southern manner. First, a spacious square for ccurt-house 
and market, lined now with stores so solid and elegant that they 
would not look out of place in the business streets of New York,, 
whose stores are palaces. From the sides and angles of this 
square, which is the broad back of a huge underground rock, run 
ine principal streets — and there is your town. 

" Pleasant Nashville ! The wealth of Nashville is of the 



17 

genuine, slowly- formed description, that does not take to itself 
wings and fly away just when it is wanted roost. It came out 
of that fertile soil which seems to combine the good qualities of 
the prairie with the lasting strength of forest land. Those 
roomy square brick mansions are well-filled with furniture the 
opposite of gimcrack, and if the sideboards do not " groan" 
under the weight of the silver plate upon them, the fact is to be 
set down to the credit of the sideboards. Where but eighty 
years ago the warwhoop startled mothers putting their children 
to bed, the stranger, strolling abroad in the evening, pauses to 
listen to operatic arias, fresh from Italy, sung with much of the 
power and more than the taste of a prima donna. Within, 
mothers may be caught in the act of helping their daughters 
write Italian exercises, or hearing them recite French verbs. 
Society is lighted with gas, and sits dazzling in the glorious 
blaze of bituminous coal, and catches glimpses of itself in mir- 
rors of full length portraitures/' 

But who founded the Medical Department of your wonderful 
University in a city so rare in all the attractive elements of 
beauty ? Why, who else, young gentlemen, but the same great 
genius on " College Hill" who had consecrated his life with all 
the profound learning its well spent hours had brought him to 
the achievement of the grand purposes so eloquently described 
by Hakey and Parton, and hundreds of others. We may be 
instructed by a reference to the early workers in it as we are by 
the Acts of the Apostles, but the church was founded by one who 
while among them was not of them. 

In his Baccalaureate address of 1729 he says : 
" In casting my eye over the map of Tennessee, it struck me 
from the first that this was precisely the place destined by Prov- 
idence for a great university, if ever such an institution were to 
exist in the State. And in this opinion I am fully confirmed 
by several years' observation and experience. I am entirely 
satisfied that it is physically impossible to maintain a university 
(I am not now speaking of an ordinary college,) in any other 
town in the State. And for this single good reason, were there 
no other, namely, a medical school, which may be regarded as 
an essential and as the most important part of a real university, 
can never be sustained except in a large town or city, and the 
larger the better. Nashville is the only place where ft medicsL 



IS 

school would even be thought of ; and physicians know full well 
that such is the fact," 

At that day Memphis as a city did not exist. Who else 
ought to have founded any department of a university, born of 
his genius as was Minerva of the head of Jupiter, but h©- who 
spoke out thus to the world from his proud temple of 
learning ? He had no hopes from the church nor the state nor 
private munificence nor had those, and they so proclaimed, who* 
were working under the guidance of his genius in organizing the 
Medical Department. He asks : 

" Where then is the ground of our hope and encouragement ? 
It is in the growing strength and moral influence of our own 
enlightened, loyal, and patriotic sons, who issue, year alter year r 
from our classic halls, imbued with the chivalrous spirit and 
republican virtue of the brightest age of Greek and Roman! 
glory — and animated by the celestial principles of Christian 
magnanimity and benevolence — and whose voice shall yet be 
heard by a generous and honest, though hitherto much abused 
and misguided people. It is in these, under the propitious 
smiles and overruling providence of the Most High, that we 
place our confidence, and garner up our soul's fondest aspira- 
tions. They will never prove recreant or traitorous. The claims 
of Alma Mater upon their affections, their zeal, their labors,, 
their influence, their talents, and their wealth, will ever be ac- 
knowledged as of paramount and everlasting obligation. 

" We say — or rather let the University proudly say — there 
are our sons. We send them forth into the world. And by the 
world's spontaneous verdict upon their training and their bear- 
ing will we abide. We calmly and confidently await the world's 
decision ; and we feel assured of no mortifying disappointment. 
Our faith is strong, unwavering, invincible. And our pur- 
pose to persevere in the good work, which has thus far been 
signally prospered in the midst of every species of hinderance 
and discouragement, can not be shaken. The tongue which 
now speaks our high resolve, and bids defiance to scrutiny, to 
prejudice, to jealousy, to cowardice, to calumny,, to malevolence, 
may be silent in the tomb Ions: ere the glorious victory shall be 
achieved. But WE the UNIVERSITY, live forever ! And 
generations yet unborn shall rejoice in our triumphs, and pro- 
nounce the eulogium which our labors will have nobly won." 

Never was there a greater outburst of philanthropy, never a 
more eloquent revelation of a fixed determination of purpose to* 
wrest success from Fate itself in a cause which he felt com;- 



19 

mended itself to whatever is good, noble nnd generous in man. 

Upon another occasion in allusion to his great subject he 
says : 

" Ignorance never did any good, and never will or can do any 
good. Ignorant men arc good for nothing, except, so far as 
they are governed an I directed by intelligent superiors. Hence 
it is the order of Providence, that in every well regulated com- 
munity children and ail grossly ignorant persons are held in sub- 
jection to age and wisdom and experience. No species or por- 
tion, even of humblest manual or mechanical labor, can be per- 
formed until the party be taught how to doit. 

It it be said that the Deity has no need of human learning to 
propagate his religion, it may be replied that neither has he any 
need of human ignorance. He could, if he chose, dispense with 
human agency al together/' 

He not only adumbrated the Me.l'cal Department of the Uni- 
versity of Nashville but was a living actor in its organization 
and he lived to see and rejoice over its magnificent success. He 
wrote from his own brain the Latin Diploma that you will re- 
ceive this evening and enjoyed at the time the reputation of be- 
ing the first classical sholar on the continent. One of his sons 
upon presenting himself to the celebrated Prof. Chapman, of 
Philadelphia for examination for the Degree of Doctor of Medi- 
cine, Chapman, himself a scholar, took up the entire time allotted 
for the examination in asking the young candidate how his 
father pronounced this and that latin word, forgetting to say 
a word about medicine while the young man was in his 
room. We remember him so well as we saw him in 1850, stand- 
ing on the stone steps of the " East wing," now the centre build- 
ing of the Medical College. We had no previous acquaintance 
with him, but we had drunk in instruction from him during all 
the years he had labored to make the beautiful city stretched 
oul before him without rival in all the land. We conversed free- 
ly with him about a Department of Medicine. He said the 
time had come — and there never was a move in the matter with- 
out his knowledge and concurrence. Others appear at the foot- 
lights, my unworthy self among them^but one back of the scenes 
was the arranger, constructor and founder. I will not say that 
fc& wag pteatk3d witij the uxriu fta€u# in t^bl^{a»i^t|t>ni ht wis 



20 

too good a University Man for that, and his plan was set 
aside and one almost its oposite finally secured. 

On the 9th day of December, 1843, Jno. M. Bass, Esq., a 
member of the Board, resolved that a Committee of three be ap- 
pointed to take into consideration the propriety of establishing 
a Medical School attached to the University. Messrs. K. C. 
Foster, Sr., Bass, and Ewin were appointed. 

On the 8th of February, the following year, this Committee 
report "that the Board at once establish said Medical School. 7 ' 
The Committee had opened a correspondence with and received 
suggestions and a memorial from J. M. Briggs, M. D., 
of Bowling Green, Kentucky, a distinguished physician and 
father ot our present Professor of Obstetrics. 

On the 17th of the same month President Phillip Lindsley 
submitted the following resolutions. 

1st. That it is expedient to establish a medicarschool in con- 
nection with the University of Nashville. 

2nd. That no portion of the funds of the University shall be 
appropriated to the aid or support of the said medical school, 
and that this Board will assume no pecuniary responsibilities 
whatever in its behalf. 

3d. That qualification for degrees should be equal to those 
required by the most respectable medicaPschools in the United 
States. 

4th. That no student shall be admitted to the degree of 
Doctor of Medicine under the age of twenty-one. 

5th. That no person shall be admitted to the Degree of 
Doctor of Medicine, except Bachelors of Arts, or such as shall be 
found on examination to be adequately acquainted with classical 
literature and the liberal sciences. And that the said examina- 
tion shall be conducted in the manner hereafter to be prescribed 
by this Board. 

6 th'. That .the, entire supervision and control of the medical 
school in all respects and tor all purposes, together wi£h the 
power of discontinuing the same do rest in this Board, and shall 
be exercised agreeably to the charter and for the best interests of 
the University and of the Commonwealth, 



21 

Two days after this, a paper Faculty was made of which the 
world has heard nothing from that day to this. 

In 1849 Charles Caldwell, M.D., long a distinguished medical 
teacher in Transylvania University and the conceded founder of 
the Medical Department ot the University of Louisville, having 
had his chair destroyed at Louisville by the Trustees, in high 
dudgeon came down to Nashville to establish a rival of Louis- 
ville here. He got an audience, made a speech, a committee 
was appointed to raise funds which has not yet reported pro- 
gress. The professor returned to Louisville and so little interest 
did the newspapers of the city take in the matter that the one I 
took, the Banner, had to be paid for mentioning the matter in 
its news column, as is evidenced by the notice having a star at 
the end of it. 

In September 1850 the name of J. Berrien Lindsley was left 
on my office slate. I had never seen him. The next day he called 
while I was in. We had a long conversation upon medical men 
and medical schools. He was born and reared in a university 
with the lofty ideas of his distinguished father. We were both 
full of medical schools and rather anxious that a medical school 
should be partially full of us. By him I was introduced to kin- 
dred spirits. We had frequent meetings at my office. All were 
enthusiastic. The club consisted of Dr. J. Berrien Lindsley, 
Drs. A. H. Buchanan, Robert Porter, Charles K. Winston, Jno. 
M. Watson, and myself. The various members conceded to me 
a higher knowledge of medical men and medical matters than I 
deserved. By their unanimous solicitation I drew up the speech 
to the Trustees asking for such powers as astonished University 
men andwdrich, if conceded, would reverse the President's grand 
idea of a medical school's utter dependence upon the parent in- 
ititution, an indefinite babyhood or such, alas ! as is too often 
extinguished by the sacred but dark waters of the Ganges. 
Andrew Ewing read the speech to the Board and the powers 
were granted. I drew up the articles of confederation and elab- 
orated a government. Each was acceptable to the club, and 
ratified by the Board, and ihe names mentioned above, as those 
of our medical club, the Board of Trustees of the University 
of Nashville organized into a Medical Faculty. None of them 
had any experience save as office teachers, but all had enthusiasm, 
energy and unfaltering determination of purpose. It seems but 
yesterday, yet one-half of them have passed away like a dream. 



Before the course commenced, however, Dr Paul F. Ev<\ loner 
a journalist and lecturer, and who enjoyed a splendid reputation 
north and south of us as an eloquent and impassioned speaker, 
and an operating surgeon of unrivaled splendor, joined us, 
and this accession of unquestioned strength very naturally 
augmented our confidence in the enterprise. The success 
was unprecedented. From 1851 to 1861 we taught no less 
than 3787 young gentlemen, and oi this number graduated 1105. 
From the beginning until now we have taught in this institu- 
tion 4000 and gradutted 1186. 

In 1859 Dr. Halsey allows Nashville a population of thirty- 
two thousand. The late civil commotions that laid waste so 
many beautiful Southern cities left Nashville unscathed. A 
great centre of military operations millions ot course were expen- 
ded here amid surrounding desolation. The coolest of her citizens 
in the absense of accurate statistics compute her population at 
sixty thousand. No department of the University was injured, 
in its buildings, libraries, museums, or cabinets. Since the bless- 
ings of peace have again smiled up -n our troubled land a new 
department has sprung up in the University, rhe Montgomery 
Bell Academy, upon a permanent foundation. It is now in suc- 
cessful operation with 60 students. Other schools or depart- 
ments will soon be re-organized and there is no reason why we 
should despair of its reaching the glory and magnidcence pre- 
saged of it by him who so long and so triumphantly shaped her 
destiny. 

And now, young gentlemen, full of the same hope and trust 
that filled the heart of the great and good Lindsley, 1 apply his 
words to you. 

" We say — or rather let the university proudly say — there 
are our sons. We send them forth into the world. And by the 
world's spontaneous verdict upon their training and their bear- 
ing will we abide. We calmly and confidently await the world's 
decision ; and we feel assured of no mortifying disappointment. 
Our faith is strong, unwavering, invincible. And our purpose 
to persevere in the good work, which has thus far been signally 
prospered in the midst of every species of hinderance anil dis- 
couragement, can not be shaken. The tongue whieh now speaks 
our high resolve, and bids defiance to sciutiny, to prejudice, to 
jealousy, to cowardice, to calumny, to male vole rice, may be silent 
in the tomb long ere the glorious victory shall be achieved. But 
WE, the UNIVERSITY, live forever! And generations yet 
unboro shall rejoice in our triumphs, and prououuue theeulogium 
which ©ur hihora wail have aobly wos." 



23 

POSTSCRIPT. 

For those who are curious in tracing grand effects to the radi- 
cal causes insignificantly minute this postcript as, an addendum 
to the ahove address is given with it to the printer. It is made 
up in p rt out of a correspondence of the author with Dr. W. 
A. Cheatham, late Superintendent of the Tennessee Hospital for 
the Insane, and in part from a diary kept by Dr. J. Berrien 
Lindsley. Nothing is set down hero except from the record. 

[Extracts from correspondence of the author with Dr. W. A. Cheatham.] 
(" CONFIDENTIAL NO. 1.) 

"At Home, March 5th, 1848. 

Drar Doctou :— -I have determined upon a short series of 
letters to you with a view of unfolding the elements of an enter- 
prise which have long occupied a prominent position in my cogi- 
tations. My r'.'flec ions upon that subject aro thoroughly diges- 
ted and the conclusion to which they direct me / know to be 
sound. 

* ' :: ' * Thirty years ago a few physicians at 

Lexington determined upon a medical school. Dudley, a mau 
possessing uncommon force of character, put the ball in motion 
and when every body knew it would fail it succeeded without the 
siighest difficulty. The first school in a place, wherever insti- 
tuted has succeeded. * * ::: ' * * 

When medical schools have failed they have invaribly been 
neiv schools, reared up in open opposition to an existing one in 
the same place. ;:: ' * ;: " In the whole history of 

medicine in the South and West there never was so favorable a 
period to insure the success of one as now at the proper point. 
** * Louisville ruined Lexington because it became, 

in a professional sense, a ligature upon her artery of nutrition. 
The students of the South touched Louisville first and were 
booked A school South of Louisville will cut off her supplies 
i.j like manner/' 

In other letters of this series, still in the possession of Dr. 
Cheatham, the plan of a medical school is farther elaborated. In 
the plan two leading ideas are kept prominent. 

1st. The faculty must be chiefly of Nashville physicians. 
Home influence of every importance, for even talent, genius, 
and learning in medicine can not make head against local and 
partisan opposition. 

2nd. The school must be an attache of the University to secure 
thu uiiiuuiiiw uj m miuv at iiomu tm\ fciiuc oi ^ta vkws uUvad, 



24 

The author who Was then residing in Logan' county, Ken- 
tucky, requested his friend Dr. Cheatham to show these letters 
to prominent Nashville physicians and collect their opinions. 
He did so. hut all seemed to regard the scheme 1 Utopian, and in 
the beginning of 1850, the author removed to Nashville deter- 
mined, if he could find a few Nashville physician's to aid himy to 
tes.t the feasibility of his scheme, even if it should wreck his 
private fortune. 

[From Dr. Lindsley's Diary.] 

" 1849, Oct. 22— Monday— Called on Dr. Caldwell. 

" 26 — Heard Dr. Caldwell deliver an introductory 
pn Medical Jurisprudence." 

During Dr. Caldwell's visit to Nashville, he attempted to form 
f a Medical Faculty and establish a school in Nashville. In this 
fScbeme Drs. Winston and Buchanan were active men. They 
^applied ; to J. Berrien Lindsley to take the chair of Chemistry. 
Nothing resulted from this effort. Dr. Lindsley spent the en- 
suing winter in visiting the medical schools of Louisville, New 
'York, etc. On his return in the spring, he had free consultations 
vwith Dr. Chas. K. Winston, concerning a plan of a medical 
.school as an integral p®rt of the University. Dr. Winston fully 
-.seconded the plan.. 

"Aug. 30, 1850 — Opened my medical project to R. J. Meigs. 
fOne of the Trustees of the University of Nashville.] Pretty 
£u«y at it after this. 

•'.'Sept. 2d— Called on D. W. Yandell. 

& 19— Called on Dr, Bowling, Dr. Winston. 

U 20— Dr. Bowling. 

.« 21— Doctors. 

(* 23— Dr. Bowling. 

M 24— Dr. jBowling. 

i " 25— Drs. Bowling, Porter, etc. Evening — Three hours 

doctors' meeting. 
ff 26— Evening — Doctors' Meeting. 
" 27— Dr. Bowling. Evening — Dr, Bowling and Mr. 

Meigs. 
" 2S— Dr. Bowling." 
These extracts from Dr. Lindsley's diary show how the " medi- 
cal club," spoken of in the address, originated and developed. 
This club thus formed, with the., addition of names mentioned in 
the address, by t}ie power vested in the Trustees of the Univer- 
sity of Hashvillft, wa£ &>nve*r tM info tMr M^dit^l Faculty. 



25 

The following is the speech of the author read to the Trustees 
by the Hon. E. H. Ewing : 

To the Trustees of the Nashville University : — 

We have no hesitation in believing that the popular voice here 
is in favor of a Medical School. Many attempts have heretofore 
been made in vain to meet the expectations of the public upon 
the subject. The great difficulty in the way of this enterprise, 
as is shown by its history running through a period of fifteen 
years, has been means to put it in successful operation. We 
propose to supply this desideratum from our private resources, 
and to chance the result for reimbursement. W T e ask of you, 
Gentlemen, only a recognition and the loan of your College 
buildings for the period of twenty years. We wish to have the 
sole management of the Department ourselves : 

1st. Because experience and the history of similar institutions 
show that this power is safest with those most deeply interested v 
and 

Secondly. Because this will be an enterprise in which we will 
have invested no inconsiderable amount of money, and would, on 
that account, desire to be untrammeled in the management of it. 

We herewith exhibit th^ constitution which, in the event of 
our recognition, is to regulate the internal affairs of the depart- 
ment, and which will more clearly illustrate our plan of a Medi- 
cal College. 

We ask if our proposition be favorably received, such action 
on your part as will insure us against molestation by your suc- 
cessors, in the possession of the buildings and the professorships 
which you will confer upon us. 

The history of the Medical Colleges in America is but the his- 
tory of broils and difficulties. Most of these we are firmly per- 
suaded are legitimately referable to the fact that in nearly all 
of them the tenure of the professorship is exclusively dependent 
on the caprice of the Trustees in the first place, and in the second 
to the fact, that the professor has no pecuniary interest separate 
and apart from his fees in the Institution. In this organization 
the professors are stimulated toexertion by the length of their lease, 
and by the great swdetener oi labor — the hope of reward. They 
4 



26 

will feel that the fruition for which they so zealously toil will 
not be stricken untasted from the lips and conferred by capricious 
task-masters on new favorites, and that the adage " one shall 
sow and another reap" shall not be the bitter end of their 
labors. They will have money invested in the enterprise, and 
that prudence incident to the ordinary affairs of man, will sug- 
gest the energy neccessary to make the investment profitable.. 
Some of them have grown grey in the toils of the profession 
which they now propose to teach, and whatever of reputation has 
accrued to them from a life of labor and self-denial they also in- 
vest in this enterprise. Others, younger, bind the bright hopes 
of a sunny future firmly to the destinies of this effort. 

We prefer no claims superior to those of our co-laborers in an 
arduous and responsible profession. We propose to do what we 
believe ought to be done, and what public sentiment demands, to- 
establish a Medical College in Nashville. We contend that it is. 
the sublimity of human folly for medical men to sit idly prating 
about the necessity of elevating the standard of medical literature, 
and that the multiplication of Medical Colleges tends to depress 
it, when daily observation demonstrates that precisely in pro- 
portion as regularly educated medical gentlemen decline the 
labor of teaching, and of thus multiplying regular physicians, 
audacious empiricism organizes hot beds for generating its swag- 
gering offspring. 

Nashville, the great political and mercantile emporium of 
the State, has contented itself with a Medical College on paper 
for fifteen years, during which long period it has not added a 
single member to the regular profession, and the result of this 
medical paralysis is that two empirical colleges in the State are 
now in successful operation.* This is elevating the standard of 
medicine with a vengeance. It is infinitely more sensible for 
qualified medical men to struggle energetically to supply the 
demands of the public for physicians than by " masterly inac- 
tivity" to permit empiricism to do it for them. The people 
everywhere manifest a decided preference for regular physicians, 
if they can proqure them, and whenever, and not before, the 



♦There are none ntfw (ISGS}. 



27 

supply equals the demand empiricism perishes. The rmmher of 
Medical Colleges cannot be limited by the power of Trustees of 
Universities in a Republic. There is a higher resort which has 
always been found available — the State Legislature — and Medi- 
cal Colleges will be multiplied by statutory provision, irrespec- 
tive of the wishes or the peculiar views of Trustees of Universi- 
ties, and a large majority of Medical Colleges in the United 
States at this hour exist on that basis. The argument therefore 
that Universities ought not to multiply medical departments 
because there are already enough for a healthy condition of 
medical science utterly fails, inasmuch as a constant successful 
demand upon Legislatures fur additional Charters demonstrates 
that in the estimation of the people there are not enough ; and 
when the people and the doctors are at issue, it does not require 
the wisdom of a Solomon to foresee which party will triumph. 

Is it contended that there is not medical talent enough in this 
the metropolis of a great State to teach the healing art? We 
reply it is to just such talent that the health and lives of the 
chivalrous people of Tennessee are entrusted. 

Is it contended that greater advantages can be secured to the 
medical student in the great tramontane institutions ? We 
reply that they will remain open to such as have means or in- 
clination to patronise them. 

All we ask is the privilege ol teaching such as are willing to 
be taught at home, and by us, and we have no fears of the result. 

We ask of the University vxt ,-aordinary poivers : the entire 
control of our own department for a term of years. We render 
to the University in return extraordinary advantages : making 
ourselves liable to heavy expenses for the sake of starting this 
department, when it is quite uncertain whether our success will 
pay for our venture. For the time being we serve as active in- 
terested agents oft the University in procuring funds to erect 
additional buildings needed by the department, and in getting 
up a medical library and museum, all of which will be the ab- 
solute property of the University when this agreement ceases. 

We respecttully solicit your eaily action in this matter, with 
the assurance that whatever that action may tfe ? we shall can- 



tinue to maintain the conviction of your wise, prudent and patri- 
otic intentions 

Jno. M. Watson, M. D., A. H. Buchanan, M. D., 

"vV. K. Bowling, M. D., Charles K. Winston, M. D., 

Robert M. Porter, M.D., J. Berrien Lindsley, M. D. 

Nashville, Sep. 28 th, 1850. 

Immediately after the reading a Committee composed of Dr. 
Felix Kobertson, Messrs. Washington, Williams, Bass and 
Meigs was appointed to confer with the above medical gentle- 
men freely and fully and report at the next meeting of the Board. 
Accordingly at the next meeting the Committee report that " the 
Committee to whom was referred the proposition for the estab- 
lishment of a Medical Department of the University of Nash- 
ville, as contained in the plan and memorial submitted to this 
Board by Messrs. W. K. Bowling, Robert M. Porter, Charles K. 
Winston, John M. Watson, John B. Lindsley, and A. H. 
Buchanan, beg leave to report that the plan on which said De- 
partment is proposed to be organized and conducted and the 
known character and ability of those who propose to embark in 
the enterprise give to the public and this Board the strongest 
hope of success and that it is the duty of the Board to give to 
«aid Department the use of what is called the new College build- 
ing, etc., * * >* * for the term of twenty-two 
yeais as proposed in said memorial and that a Committee be ap- 
pointed on the part of this Board to prepare articles of agree- 
ment, to be executed by the proper officers of this Board on our 
part, setting forth terms on which the grant or lease is proposed 
£0 be made and said Department established. 
Sigaaed* 

Felix Robertson, 
Thos. Washington, 
Will. Williams, 
R. J. Meigs, 
Jno. M. Bass. 
Oct 11th, 1850. 

Agreeably to this Report it was H on motion-of Jno. M, Bass, 



£9 

Resolved, That a Medical Department be established in con- 
nection with the University, * * * * and that a Com- 
mittee be appointed to draw the articles of agreement between 
the University and the professors in the Medical Department 
thus created, etc. Messrs. Ewing, Meigs and Bass were appoin- 
ted on said Committee. 

The Board then proceeded to an election of Professors in the 
Medical Department in the University of Nashville, when the 
following Gentlemen were unanimously elected to fill the Chairs, 

viz : 

Jno. M. Watson, M.D., 

Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children. 
A. H. Buchanan, M.D., 

Surgery. 
W. K. Bowling, M.D., 

Institutes and Practice of Medicine. 
C. K. Winston, M.D., 
fl Materia Medica and Pharmacy. 

Itobt. M. Porter, M.D., 

Anatomy and Physiology. 
J. Berrien Lindsley, M D., 

Chemistry and Pharmacy." 

At the next meeting, Friday Oct. 18, 1850, "on motion it was 
•was resolved that the Committee appointed at the last meeting 
viz. : Messrs. Ewing, Meigs and Bass be authorized to conclude 
a contract with the professors of the Medical Department of the 
University of Nashville and that any agreement which they in 
their discretion might enter into with said professors should be 
binding on this Board." 

The indenture between the University and the Professors in 
the newly created Medical Department signed by the Committee 
of the Board of Trustees, Ewing, Meigs and Bass, on the part 
of the University and by the newly created Professors on the 
part of the Medical Department, says that the latter " shall 
peaceably and quietly have hold and occupy, possess and enjoy 
the said p ; ece or parcel of ground and premises hereby devised 
with all its appurtenances for, and during the said term of 



30 

twenty-two years, hereby granted without any lawful let, 
trouble, denial or interruption of or by the said University of 
Nashville, or any person or persons -lawfully claiming or to claim 
by from or under the same." To the aforesaid professors is 
furthermore granted the power " in case of vacancies in any of 
said professorships to nominate successors and the right and 
power of changing, abolishing or vacating professorships and 
right and power of conducting all the affairs of the Department 
as fully as the Trustees themselves, free from interference of said 
Trustees during the term aforesaid." 

The government adopted for the College was extremely 
simple. There were to be two officers, each to be elected 
annually, viz. : a President of the Faculty to call meetings, and 
preside at them, and a Dean upon whom devolved the duty of 
managing the entire machinery at home and of representing the 
Institution abroad. He appoints Janitors and all operatives and 
is the sole custodian of the building and its contents. The In- 
stitution has never had a Treasurer, the Dean managing the pub- 
lic funds. When the graduating fees, matriculating fees, and 
other resources of the Dean were insufficient to pay the expenses 
of the College the balance was provided for by pro rata assess- 
ments upon each professor. In early years, while furnishing 
the museum, these assessments were often very heavy but in 
those years were cheerfully met. , From time to time attempts 
have been made to increase the number of officers but always 
failed. Prof. Winston has held the office of President of the 
Faculty from the beginning. Prof. Lindsley held the office of 
Dean the first six years when he resigned. Prof. Eve then held 
it two years and the author has held it ten years and though re- 
elected unanimously on the 30th of October last resigned, for his 
resignation to take effect on the 1st of April next. Prof. Linds- 
ley was elected to the Deanship for the year after the 1st day of 
April, 1868. 

The eminently just and conservative rule was adopted that a 
majority of the professors should rule, but should have no power, 
to make the fees of different chairs unequal. A maj >rity could 
ftweffl each proft^sor to any amount. The profesi&r's remedy 



31 

was resignation if he did not like the assessment, and if he did 
not pay his assessment within ninety days after it was agreed on 
by a majority of the Faculty and recorded by the Dean that fact 
was to be taken as his resignation without farther action of the 
Faculty. In prosperous times these rules would be, and were 
regarded as just and proper, but when assessments, however nec- 
essary, swallowed up fees almost to the last dollar, the more 
stringently organized could see no beauty in assessments, and 
would defy majorities. 

A government so simple and so just ought to commend itself 
to all. It secured perfect harmony here for sixteen years out of 
the seventeen, during which the Institution has existed. We 
have never been in sympathy with those who believe that a 
class of men outside the pale of medicine can govern medical mat- 
ters better than medical men themselves can. We objected there- 
fore to Dr. Philip Lindsley's plan which gave the medical teachers 
no power. We never could understand the sense or propriety of 
Baying to a medical student who had passed a satisfactory exam- 
ination before judges of his qualifications, (his professors,) that 
if it were the pleasure of those who were no judges at all of his 
qualifications, (the Trustees, ) he should have the degree con- 
ferred upon him. That is he should be a doctor if those who 
knew nothing about it should say so. 



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